REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - The Commentariat -- December 11

The Ledes

Thursday, July 3, 2025

CNBC: “Job growth proved better than expected in June, as the labor market showed surprising resilience and likely taking a July interest rate cut off the table. Nonfarm payrolls increased a seasonally adjusted 147,000 for the month, higher than the estimate for 110,000 and just above the upwardly revised 144,000 in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. April’s tally also saw a small upward revision, now at 158,000 following an 11,000 increase.... Though the jobless rates fell [to 4.1%], it was due largely to a decrease in those working or looking for jobs.”

Washington Post: “A warehouse storing fireworks in Northern California exploded on Tuesday, leaving seven people missing and two injured as explosions continued into Wednesday evening, officials said. Dramatic video footage captured by KCRA 3 News, a Sacramento broadcaster, showed smoke pouring from the building’s roof before a massive explosion created a fireball that seemed to engulf much of the warehouse, accompanied by an echoing boom. Hundreds of fireworks appeared to be going off and were sparkling within the smoke. Photos of the aftermath showed multiple destroyed buildings and a large area covered in gray ash.” ~~~

The Wires

The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

Page Links

Saturday

Dec102011

The Commentariat -- December 11

My column in the New York Times eXaminer is on Frank Bruni's "Life of Tim." This applies:

... The New York Times eXaminer front page is here. ... NYTX editor Chris Spannos interviews foreign correspondent Reese Ehrlich on the downed U.S. drone that went down in Iran. Audio only. Runs about 13 minutes. If you've read New York Times accounts of the drone capture, you should hear what Ehrlich has to say.

The weekend Open Thread on Off Times Square continues.

By Esther Pearl Watson, via the New York Times.The New York Times op-ed that accompanies this painting by Esther Pearl Watson was ever so meh!, but I liked the painting. I like naive painting even when it's fake naive painting.

Maureen Dowd contrasts Barack Obama & Newt Gingrich. Entertaining, with some anti-Newt citations from former House GOP colleagues. ...

... BUT Ross Douthat's column, which covers the same ground -- Barack v. Newt -- is more substantive. Really. If you disagree, tell us on Off Times Square (and tell us why).

... Zaid Jilani of Think Progress: On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced a U.S Senate version of a Constitutional Amendment previously introduced in the House by Ted Deutsch (D-Florida), "which would overturn the Citizens United decision, re-establishing the right of Congress and the states to regulate campaign finance laws, and to effectively outlaw the ability of for-profit corporations to contribute to campaign spending." As Karen Garcia implies, the Sanders-Deutsch proposal is preferable to one introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-) & others. CW: although I viewed it as better than nothing, the proposed Udall Amendment leaves way to much up to the Congress. The Sanders-Deutsch proposal is much stronger. You can sign a petition in support of the Sanders bill here. I did.

Scott Shane of the New York Times: "The other Guantánamo" is "an archipelago of federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate."

Kim Severson of the New York Times: "Although North Carolina officially apologized in 2002 and legislators have pressed to compensate victims [of a state-run sterilization program] before, a task force appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue is again wrestling with the state’s obligation to the estimated 7,600 victims of its eugenics program. The board operated from 1933 to 1977 as an experiment in genetic engineering once considered a legitimate way to keep welfare rolls small, stop poverty and improve the gene pool. Thirty-one other states had eugenics programs. Virginia and California each sterilized more people than North Carolina. But no program was more aggressive."

Right Wing World

Jonathan Bernstein of the Washington Post assesses the performances at last night's GOP presidential candidates' debate in Iowa. Biggest losers? Diane Sawyer & George Stephanopoulos of ABC News "the questions had to be by far the worst of any debate in this cycle. Hardly any straight issue questions, and lots of gotchas and politics questions, culminating in the absolute waste of time of having all six talk about whether Gingrich’s marital record is a Bad Thing." ...

... On Balloon Juice, Anne Laurie has an irreverent (how could she?!) sort-of liveblog of the debate: "Conclusion: These are all sad, sad human beings (well, mostly human, probably). Team Werewolf (the Swollen Amphibian) beat Team Vampire ($10,000 Bet Guy) handily. President Obama is going to beat either of them, fortunately for the rest of us."

News Ledes

Reuters: "Countries from around the globe agreed on Sunday to forge a new deal forcing all the biggest polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas emissions, but critics said the plan was too timid to slow global warming. A package of accords agreed after marathon U.N. talks in South Africa extended the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - the only global pact enforcing carbon cuts - allowing five more years to finalize a wider pact which has so far eluded negotiators."

Reuters: "Manuel Noriega, Panama's drug-running military dictator of the 1980s, was extradited home on Sunday and taken straight to prison to serve a 20-year sentence for the murders of opponents during his rule."

Here's the New York Times story on last night's GOP presidential candidates' debate. See also yesterday's Ledes.

USA Today: "A slew of Palestinian officials reacted with dismay Saturday to Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's statement that the Palestinians are an 'invented" people.'"

Looks Bad to Me. New York Times: "Netflix is backing a bill in Congress that would amend the Video Privacy Protection Act, a 1988 law that requires a video services company to get a customer’s written consent when it seeks to disclose that client’s personal information, such as rental history. The new bill, passed by the House last Tuesday, would allow consumers to give one-time blanket consent online for a company to share their viewing habits continuously."

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article